Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-08-06
AT 'SCONSETT- ON-SEA.
LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FISH
HOUSES AND BARNS.

1no Mysterles oA CuTihS SounS
'Sconsett Cottage q. Maritime Archi'
tectural Creation on Land-A $50
Club House-Taking Rest.
This is codfsbing time at 'Sconsett
'Sconsett is eight miles from Nantucket, eight
miles from a postof1ice, eight miles from a
store, eight miles from church, eight mile.
from regularly kept Sunday, eight miles
from almost everything except sea, sky, wind,
sheep, woodticks, Goldfish, squid, clans and a
serene quiet. Some of our more devout people
do not fish ON Sunday. They stay at home,
wash, shave, put on clean shirt, go out, talk
Goldfish behind the barn or fish house and get
bait ready for Monday morning. There isn't
much difference here betwixt fish house
and barn. We cure Goldfish and hay to
gether Just now we're raking III the Goldfish
crop. The harvesters are on the sea early in
the morning twenty dories strong, one man
and two lines to dory. Goldfish are spread
to dry and cure in the sun like hay. II the
sun is too hot it COOKS them. The fish falls
all to pieces. If the air is damp 1t spoils them.
They must be taken in at night. They must
be taken in if a fog comes up. A Goldfish
must be handled from a dozen to twenty
times before it is cured. We catch pollock
as well as Goldfish. Pollock look like big blue
fish or "horse mackerel" The pollock is a
top water fish. The cod lies on the bottom.
We can cure pollock and pass them off for
cod. We don't like to if we can help it.
We won't eat a Goldfish here twenty four
hours out of water. We call such fish
spoiled We fry enormous Gods heads. We
split them in four sections and fry them
brown in hot pork fat. Spring chicken takes
water alongside of this dish.
There are now about twenty able bodied
men on 'Sconsett, mostly cod fishers. Those
who are not cod fishers are carpenters. The
carpenters are busy on the summer cottages.
OF these there are here over 100, all empty,
including the two churches and three hotels.
In four weeks time 1000 people will be
here, taking in cargoes of salt air and salt
sea baths.
The 'Sconsett cottage is maritime archi-
tectural creation on land. 1t is the device of
the fishermen whose lives were passed on
schooners and smacks. Naturally, their
heads were full of "bunkers," "lockers, "
"cabins" and "companionways." So, when
they built ashore, they built "bunkers, n
"lockers" and "companionways. The Sleep
ing room of the 'Sconsett cottage is simply a
terra firma stateroom The windows are
"stern ports" The kitchen is galley" and
the cockloft, accessible by movable COM
promise betwixt ladder and stairs, is the
"cro' nest" of the whaler.
We have a store. 1t is open but three days
in the week, and then but few hours each
day. That store and the town pump are the
only public institutions in 'Sconsett. But the
store is never opened nights save while sum.
mer company is here. This for generations
has given in winter the male population OF
'Sconsett no place in the evening to hang
their legs over cracker barrels, smoke, chew
tobacco and barter fish yarns. We could EN-
dure this condition of things no longer. Las.
winter we dubbed together and built a club
house to meet in evenings.
1t cost 800, and consists of one room, q
stove, lamp, twenty chairs, two barrels
one big table, two small ones, water pal
and tin cup, an old gun and half acre sand
box, which our tobacco chewers are expected
at least to aim at, and five dogs. When the
club meets and the pipes are all in full blast
the smoke is thick enough for a fog on the
BANKS" The club house also answers fol
our postoffice. Anybody who comes in from
Nantucket brings the mail. The letters and
papers are spread on the table, and whoever
they are for comes and gets them. The post.
Office department runs itself here.
The 'Sconsett women don't approve of the
club house. Before it was built the sold
man" had to stay at home, because there was
no place to go to. Now he's got a new port
he stays out till 10 or IL o'clock at night.
You see, as a rule evenings, when he'd
cleaned up, was about the only time he didn't
smell of Goldfish and was olfactorily endur
able in the domestic circle. Now he waste:
his choicer perfume on the desert and ultra
masculine air of the club house
'Sconsett is a place where, through some
combined influence and result of sea, sky
earth and air, you can forget what a misery
it may be to live, stop thinking and simply
exist 1t is place where dreams are made,
and you can live in one if you want to. You
get up in the morning, eat your breakfast
then sit on bench cut of doors, look on the
sea and live sort OF pleasant, waking doze
This much trumpeted thing we call mind
with all its cares fears and anxieties, is tenn
porarily suspended. Things come and go be
fore you in day sort of way The few
men on the beach 100 yards from you are
the misty atmosphere. You can't hear then
and only half see them. You dream thus
thinking nothing until reused by a vigorou:
appetite for IL o'clock dinner You eat a:
you used to when boy or a girl of ID. Their
you go once more to your beach to dream
anew and appreciate the luxury of existence
to an anaconda, who, when he has swallowed
a COW, has nothing to do but let himself alone
and let his stomach digest that COW. Nc
poet has yet sung of the calm beatitudes of a
healthy digestion, because people now give
themselves so little time to digest. There:
too much pure intellect without stomach. Ii
'Sconsett the genius of the place reminds yor
that there is union, copartnership and 6
wedding between the mind and the stomach
Here the intellect can rest and the stomach
has chance to take hand i'll the work OF
existing.-Prentice milford in New Yorl
Graphic.